Benbow-Brammer Mfg. Co. v. Straus

• Decision Date: 15 December 1908
• Docket Number: 158.
• Citation: 166 F. 114
• Parties: BENBOW-BRAMMER MFG. CO. v. STRAUS et al.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Second Circuit

166 F. 114

BENBOW-BRAMMER MFG. CO. v. STRAUS et al.

No. 158.

United States Court of Appeals, Second Circuit.

December 15, 1908

Rehearing Denied January 4, 1909.

Appeal from the Circuit Court of the United States for the Southern District of New York.

The patent has been before the courts in the following cases Schroeder v. Brammer (C.C.) 98 Fed. 880 (Shiras J.); Brammer v. Schroeder, 106 F. 918, 46 C.C.A. 41; Benbow-Brammer Co. v. Simpson Mfg. Co. (C.C.) 132 F 614 (Seaman, J., on motion for injunction); Same v Heffron-Tanner Co. (C.C.) 144 F. 429 (Ray, J.); Same v. Richmond Cedar Works (C.C.) 149 F. 430 (Kohlsaat, J., on motion for injunction); Same v. Lee S. Knapp (Anderson, J., D. Indiana; no opinion filed); Same v. Wayne Mfg. Co. (C.C.) 157 F. 559 (Dyer, J.); Same v. Richmond Cedar Works (C.C.) 159 F. 161 (Kohlsaat, J., on final hearing). In all of these decisions the patent has been sustained, but in the case against the Richmond Cedar Works it was held not to be infringed.

The decision of the Circuit Court is reported in Benbow-Brammer Mfg. Co. v. Straus, 158 F. 627.

Wm. Houston Kenyon, Charles C. Bulkley, C. D. Davis, and W. R. Davis, for appellants.

Philip Mauro, Taylor E. Brown, C. Clarence Poole, and Ralph L. Scott, for appellee.

Before LACOMBE, COXE, and WARD, Circuit Judges.

COXE Circuit Judge.

The first assignment of error is as follows:

'The court erred in holding the letters patent in suit, No. 535,465, to be good and valid in law as respects the first claim thereof.'

We do not understand that the defendants rely with great confidence upon this assignment. However this may be we are convinced that the first claim is valid and deem it unnecessary to add to what has been said over and over again in the prior decisions. If the doctrine of stare decisis has not become obsolete in patent causes it surely should be applicable to a case where litigation has been fierce and persistent for eight years and where the decisions have been uniform in sustaining the validity of the claim. We can add nothing to the argument in favor of validity found in the prior opinions.

The decision of the Circuit Court of Appeals of the Eighth Circuit, sustaining the patent, was made February 25, 1901, but infringements have continued to the present time, thus affording silent but persuasive confirmation of the value of the patented combination. The presumption that Schroeder's contribution to the art was a meritorious one grows more cogent as time goes on and effort after effort to evade his claim is made and defeated. If his machine is no better than prior machines, why is it that there is such a determined effort to make, use and sell it? Why is it that at the risk of being haled into court for their acts infringers continue to exist? We think the answer is obvious. Schroeder, by an ingenious and lucky combination of old elements, has produced a machine exactly suited to the needs of the user. Easily manipulated, simple in construction, effective in operation and reasonable in price, it naturally supplanted other machines of this type.

The second assignment presents the only debatable question in the record. It is as follows:

'The court erred in holding the defendants have infringed the first claim of the said letters patent.'

In approaching the consideration of this question we feel justified, in view of the facts to which brief allusion has been made, in placing a liberal construction upon the claim. The invention, though not generic, was one of unusual merit entitling the patentee to a fair range of equivalents. That the machine of the defendants performs the same function and accomplishes the same result must be conceded; the only...